


said the doe to my arrow

by thegatorgood



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:57:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12346809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegatorgood/pseuds/thegatorgood
Summary: "Aye," said Alastor grimly.  "It's Grindelwald, sir.  He's escaped."





	said the doe to my arrow

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #13, WHO ASKED FOR FRAUGHT AND TERRIBLE. I ONLY HOPE IT'S AS FRAUGHT AND TERRIBLE AS IT IS LATE. /o\

The wound across his rib cage only took two days to heal, the burn on his shoulder a little longer, but Albus ended up staying a week in St. Mungo's. Later he would say it was against his will, that the Healers insisted it was necessary to be sure none of the curses had left lasting damage, but at the time he put up no fight. He was tired, and glad that they kept the press and the Ministry away from him, that he was left to his own devices most of the time, except when the staff swooped in to poke and prod and scold him for not having finished his evening soup.

Elphias visited twice, Griselda Marshbanks once, and Horace, of course, popped in, hoping for gossip and leaving disappointed. There were long stretches of time in between the visits and the Healers' check-ups, and while Albus told everyone he planned to catch up on his reading, he did not make much progress. He could spend an afternoon staring blankly at a page and thinking about how short Gellert had cut his hair,and how that had been a tactical mistake. That summer, he had always been distracted by Gellert's curls, wanting to wrap them around his fingers, to bury his face in them. He'd run his hands through Gellert's hair on countless occasions, after a few weeks of agonizing torture in which he was sure Gellert had known exactly what he wanted. And once he'd started, Gellert had become even worse, tossing his head laughingly, exposing his Adam's apple, moving just so that his hair brushed across Albus's face, and smiling when Albus finally reached out and took hold of him.

He'd smiled much the same way when he'd sent the burst of fire that had scorched Albus's shoulder, and ruined a pair of perfectly good emerald green robes.

Fawkes would notice he wasn't reading and begin to sing. He'd half-hop, half-glide from his perch to Albus's chair. He'd stay there and croon and Albus would be glad of his presence.

The second week passed less pleasantly. The Ministry finally sunk their claws into him, and so he spent it consulting with Aurors, both British and foreign, who demanded his estimation of Gellert's capacities, demanded he look over their plans to turn Nurmengard into a holding cell. They could not, they said, keep twelve wizards on him at all times, and while Albus knew they were right, he could not see why they needed him. "Grindelwald is unlikely to have built a prison that anyone could escape from," he told them. "I wouldn't urge you to use the standard spells--your strongest would be best--but there won't be any secret passages out."

Albus knew they didn't believe him. It was rather galling, to be told one's expertise was necessary, and then, when one had given it, have it dismissed. They wanted him to travel back to Germany and examine the castle for himself, he could tell, only he was so adamant they didn't dare ask. In the meantime, they dispatched a team to do the inspection that he would not, and gave him updates, as though he wanted them.

Finally they stopped asking, and at the end of February he was allowed to return home.

Armando Dippet offered to meet him at the gates of Hogwarts, but Albus had claimed he would be getting there late and begged the Headmaster not to wait up. He spent the first afternoon of his freedom under a glamour in Diagon Alley, picking up some new texts and two scarves, one turquoise and one plum, and a bottle of fifty-year Firewhiskey. Fawkes gave a sort of disappointed noise when Albus returned to the Leaky Cauldron and sat in his room, studying and sipping some of Tom's brandy until midnight, whereupon Albus packed the rest of his things, left enough to cover his bill on the desk, and Disapparated to just slightly outside the Hogwarts grounds.

The night was dark and silent. The gates swung open for him as they would for any staff member, and he made his way up the path, trunk bobbing behind him, Fawkes flying ahead and then back, as if keeping a watchful eye on him. Watching for what, Albus could not have said: there was nothing here that was a threat to him, but the phoenix was anxious all the same.

Albus was not. Returning to Hogwarts had quieted his thoughts of Gellert, the old pains and regrets. He had known happiness here. And here he could forget the past, and focus on the present, and on the future. On improving things instead of reliving them, over and over, helpless to change them. He felt at peace, at home, and when he pulled off his socks and slipped into bed he fell asleep almost immediately.

-

Having had a relatively late night after two weeks of what could constitute enforced boredom and did constitute uncomfortable mattresses and unpleasant smells, Albus quite overslept the next morning, waking when the sun was already in the sky and Fawkes was pecking at his seed bowl reproachfully. Albus rose and with a flick of The Wand--it would, he suspected, take some time to start thinking of it as his wand--refilled both food and water bowls. They were simple charms, but even so he could feel the power of the Elder Wand. It did not frighten him, exactly, but it did cause him concern. He had only kept it out of fear that another, less well-intentioned wizard find and take it from whatever hiding place he devised. He did not want, or need, or deserve, such power.

Putting it aside for the moment, he washed up, donned a pair of indigo robes (and he'd missed his wardrobe more than he'd ever thought he would), and went down to breakfast.

The hall was almost full, and very loud, chattering away as usual, but the sounds changed soon enough as the students began to elbow one another, and point towards Albus as he approached the staff table. He had barely climbed the dais before Pomona, the new Herbology professor, enveloped him in a hug, and then Filius had let out a squeak and was hugging him too. Over their heads he could see Dippet, who looked very proud but more tired than usual, and Horace, who was smiling rather smugly as he began to applaud, and all the students and the rest of the staff, excluding those who were currently attached to his torso, applauded with him.

"Not--" Albus stopped, cleared his throat. "I am very glad to see you again as well, and I appreciate the welcome, but I daresay I could use a glass of pumpkin juice and, perhaps, a seat."

Horace was already summoning one for him. He'd have preferred his usual spot next to Galatea, but he sat in it. The students were still clapping, and Augusta, quite excitable for a third year, jumped up on the Gryffindor table and began to lead a cheer, not seeming to notice that one of her feet was in a bowl of porridge. It was entirely ridiculous and rather heart-warming, he thought. He hadn't blushed so much since--

Albus refused to think of it. "Thank you," he told Horace.

"Oh, it wasn't any trouble at all. We're all thrilled you're among us again."

Some a little less thrilled than others, Albus couldn't help noticing. Horace sat above the Slytherin table, so he had a view of that house, and while they were all clapping, some of them even enthusiastically, there were those whose relatives had supported Grindelwald, those who hadn't been very quiet about thinking he had the right idea. Nigel Lestrange was barely moving his hands, and Terrence Nott seemed to be making a joke to William Rosier under the cover of the noise.

And then there was Tom. Tom was clapping, and unlike his gang he seemed to be taking the celebration seriously--and unlike all the other students in the hall, who were elated, or relieved, or scornful, _he_ looked at Albus with a gaze that was flat and wary, reminiscent of how he'd been the first time Albus had reprimanded him.

Perhaps it was the applause, perhaps it was the simple comfort of being home, but Albus, looking down at Tom, felt unencumbered by the guilt and distractions of the previous decades. He knew that if Tom should try anything nefarious in the remainder of the school year, there would be nothing to stop Albus from thoroughly investigating and putting an end to it. It seemed Tom knew it too, and Albus was glad enough of that: the next four months should be quiet, or as quiet as they could be when Gryffindor was currently raucously chanting his name.

-

The oddest thing the first week back wasn't being treated like a hero. Albus had, in retrospect, received an embarrassing amount of special treatment when he'd been a student at Hogwarts, and as a professor there had always been students who'd heard his parents talking about him, or who came across his name in their textbooks, and were inclined to treat him with veneration--until, that was, he talked to them about knitting, or played the bagpipes as part of a lesson on diffusing an object into mist and then reassembling it. (The bagpipes were not truly necessary for the spell, which was fortunate, because his playing was abominable, but he did like to know that his NEWT students were truly committed to the subject.)

What was different was that for the first time in years he was relaxed. He could enjoy Hogwarts as he had as a student, as he had in his first decade of teaching. Gellert had been captured. Gellert wasn't terrorizing Europe--and he, Albus, wasn't hiding in Hogwarts, reluctant to face him, wondering if he could have done anything to stop this years ago, losing sleep and dropping stitches. Albus had saved his own peace of mind. Sometimes he felt positively ebullient, much as he had when Filius had popped open a magnum of champagne nearly bigger than he was, in the staff room on his first evening back. But on these other occasions he was sober, and Kettleblack wasn't singing a long, tearful song, and Horace wasn't noticeably refraining from making any remarks about the quality of the wine. Albus felt so good that he was whistling that weekend as he headed into Hogsmeade for his annual exercise in frustration and humiliation.

He'd also cast a Disillusionment charm upon himself, so the apparently empty but whistling air received some odd looks as he walked past.

"You're here," said Aberforth, not even lifting his gaze from the bar as he wiped it down.

"Yes," said Albus. He let the charm fall away. He hadn't wanted to be waylaid by well-wishers, and there certainly weren't any of those in the Hog's Head. It was mostly empty, as usual, with one very old witch sitting in a corner and nursing a bottle of gin, completely oblivious to everyone and everything else. "Happy birthday," he said, and pulled the aged Firewhiskey and its festive lilac bow from his cloak.

Since Aberforth had opened the Hog's Head it had become easier to choose a present for him, and every year for the past twenty-something Albus had made the walk down to give him a bottle of expensive liquor.

The first year--the first few years--Aberforth simply threw the bottle back at him, or set it on fire, or broke it with his wand or his hands. About ten years ago he started just taking it, putting it behind the bar. Albus didn't know if he served it to customers or drank it himself, later. It was Aberforth's gift, to do with as he pleased. Albus was merely relieved his younger brother wasn't trying to set him on fire.

And it was good to see his brother, no matter how it pained him. Aberforth was tall and skinny like he was, and squinting in a way that told Albus he was due to be fitted for spectacles soon, but he moved around the bar comfortably, stirring a pot of something on the stove that his customers wouldn't dare to try without a great deal of alcohol in them first before reaching out to inspect his present.

He tried to hide something almost like a smile when he saw the bow. When he'd managed to get his face back under control, he looked up at Albus, and then levitated two little glasses down from the shelf above. He cracked open the wax, plucked out the cork, and poured them each a measure. "Cheers," he said finally.

Albus's eyes were suddenly wet. "Cheers," he echoed, his voice as rough as his brother's.

The whiskey burned pleasantly on the way down, and Aberforth poured them both another. "You always spring for the good stuff," said Aberforth, shaking his head, "you old fool." 

"What is life worth, without the occasional indulgence?" asked Albus. "Besides, I'm not even three years older than you."

Aberforth nodded sharply at that. "Aye." They wouldn't be celebrating Albus's birthday. They didn't. For years after Ariana's death Aberforth had rarely spoken to Albus, and when he had, it wasn't the kind of communication that conveyed affection or felicitations. Elphias had once suggested that Aberforth must have forgotten--it must be difficult, having been orphaned so early, to remember when one's siblings' birthdays were without a constant parental reminder. But they hadn't been orphaned that early, and Mother simply didn't have much time left for parties after Ariana-- Albus had never corrected his friend. He knew Aberforth hadn't forgotten his birthday, because Aberforth remembered the day the same as him, when the Aurors had come to drag their father off to Azkaban. Their parents had been strange all morning, although Ariana had barely seemed more upset than she might after a particularly bad dream. Their mother had been levitating the cake to the table, a strained smile on her face that Albus hadn't failed to notice.

It had been his eleventh birthday.

The week before, Ariana had been secretive, sneaking off during the day. Aberforth had thrown it in his face that she'd said she'd been preparing a surprise for him. After the funeral. Albus didn't remember anything of the week after that. 

"Still a fool," said Aberforth, pouring another.

"Yes," said Albus. "I suppose I am."

-

Albus spent most of Sunday wretchedly hungover. The house elves brought him tea and toast and bacon around midday, and he was able to get it down without incident. His head felt like it had been split in two and his eye sockets ached and the room spun wrenchingly and he felt absolutely marvelous, because he and Aberforth were talking again.

"You're in a cheerful mood," observed Horace when he popped in around two with a Pepper-Up Potion. "I was expecting you to be retching violently."

Albus looked up from where he'd been sorting his socks (his head hurt too much for books, but he had a thousand menial tasks to take care of) to Horace's vaguely disappointed mustache. "Oh?"

"The bloke from the Hog's Head brought you back last night. You were singing." He paused. "You're quite good at it."

"Ah," said Albus. "A talent I was not aware I possessed." He took the Pepper-Up Potion, and chased it with a measure of Muggle Scotch. (Horace declined, but didn't say no to an elderflower brandy. He had the most outrageous sweet tooth.)

"Are you sure that's wise?" Horace asked as he poured another.

"Hair of the Kneazle," said Albus serenely. "And I have rather been letting my correspondence build up; there are owls that I would prefer not to answer sober."

Horace's eyes slid towards the desk. Albus didn't plan on telling him much, didn't want to tell him--to tell anyone--anything, but he supposed he'd have to drop some details here and there to keep the peace. The one person he felt had the right to ask hadn't--or if Aberforth had, Albus had simply been too cheerfully drunk to remember. He vaguely recalled being invited back in a month or so. He wasn't sure if it was true--feeling so wonderfully, so ridiculously good, seemed impossible, so there had to have been a catch, it had to have been something he'd dreamed up. 

But no: he owled Aberforth, and Aberforth confirmed it (and told Albus he couldn't hold his liquor), and not only was it for the once, it was a _standing invitation_. And Albus took it, so often he was half afraid he'd make himself unwelcome, or chase off all Aberforth's customers, but he was never asked to leave again.

 

April turned into May, and May into June. Despite all the owls, and the first years who dropped things when they saw him, and an annoying visit from his deeply unimpressed second-cousin-once-removed that had something to do with the young man's preposterous plans to take over the Ministry, he still felt good. He felt able to enjoy himself again. He scheduled conferences, he promised he'd visit the Scamanders next winter before they left New Zealand, he even refereed a Quidditch match when Agapantha was struck down with a bad case of lumbago. And he visited Aberforth again and again, and they actually had discussions that did not involve Aberforth throwing him out of his bar or threatening to file a complaint. Aberforth even named a kid after him.

And so Albus was entirely unprepared for it when, one Friday afternoon, Tom Riddle lingered after class. Albus had dismissed the students and they'd left in chattering wave, and the cries of Kettleblack's class were floating in through the open windows, and he'd turned his back on the room to spell clean the chalkboard and to tidy the stack of essays on his desk, and when he turned around again, Tom was standing there.

He drew in a sharp breath before he could stop himself. It was the closest they'd been since February, for Tom had quite wisely taken the lesson of Gellert's defeat to heart--if, that was, he had one--and become quieter, more subdued, less troublesome. Even Horace had said he worried about the boy--and Albus might have replied that he himself always worried about Tom Riddle, although not in the way Horace meant it.

"Professor," said Tom. His thin white hands were twisted together, as if from nerves, as if in supplication.

"Do you have a question about today's lesson, Tom?" He was now as tall as Albus was, and could look him directly in the eyes--although at the moment he wasn't choosing to.

"Not about the lesson, sir. About--sir, I hear Professor Merrythought is retiring."

Or read it out of someone's mind--but no, it was not impossible that Horace might have shared that news with select members of his Slug Club. "Yes, I'd heard the same."

Tom's lips thinned like he had expected Albus to make this easier for him. Why, Albus couldn't say: they both knew each other too well for that.

Whatever Tom had been about to say was interrupted by a creak of the door. Tom turned around, and Albus stared past him.

It was another student, a fifth-year Ravenclaw. Greengrass, Albus remembered, the one who was sick. He had pale golden hair, a smattering of freckles across his thin face, and his light blue eyes were focused on Tom with that certain adolescent intensity. "Oh," he said. "I was waiting for you, but I didn't see you leave, and I thought--I thought we could walk to the library together." He looked so hopeful and ridiculous and young.

Tom moved towards him. "I have a question for Professor Dumbledore," he said. He touched the other student's elbow. "I'll meet you there."

Gel-- no, Ganymede Greengrass leaned into the touch, and looked up at Tom with something like worship in his eyes, and said, after a second, "Yes. Yes, of course." He moved towards Tom like a sunflower following the sun.

He moved towards Tom like a Muggle puppet, with Tom holding the strings.

Tom smiled, caressed the boy's arm for a second, and then released him.

For the first time in months, Albus felt rooted to the spot, pinned there by memories, weighed down by things he thought dead and buried but had so rudely come back to life.

Tom wasn't outwardly the same boy he'd met at the orphanage almost seven years ago. He'd discovered the trick of empathy--and to him it was a trick, to manipulate others, to exploit them. He'd use it on other students: look how alike we are, look how much I understand you, now trust me and do everything I say. But he never meant it, because there was no one like Tom Riddle.

He didn't know where Tom had found this particular secret out. Albus was careful and Albus was discreet about his past, his preferences, and yet he supposed it was possible that Tom was a stronger Legilimens than Albus had given him credit for. That Tom had--Albus shuddered--looked into his eyes and seen Albus's soul stripped bare. And put on this little dumb show with Ganymede in response. Look how alike we are. Look how much I understand you.

And yet: how little he understood Albus. Albus remembered being that young once, and being in love. When he'd faced Gellert, he'd done so with the fear that Gellert might speak of Arianna, and the curse that killed her. The memory of how, his newly broken nose throbbing, his first response had been to wish Gellert had been there to distract him from it, to tease him for his vanity and vulnerability, to heal it for him. Almost immediately after that he'd been sickened and horrified by himself, collapsing at the funeral for all the wrong reasons, but the pull to Gellert had still been there, and it was still--

"What is it you want, Tom?" he asked roughly.

The small smile left Tom's face instantly. He wasn't such a fool that he couldn't tell when his schemes fell apart. "As I said, sir." He no longer sounded nervous; he sounded like at any given moment he expected to fight. "I heard Professor Merrythought was retiring. She'll leave the Defense Against the Dark Arts post vacant. I intend to apply for it."

"You're rather young for it," Albus said. He would not allow Tom to see him rattled. "But I'm afraid I don't see what it has to do with me."

"You don't," said Tom flatly. "You're only one of the heads of house, a long-serving professor, and next in line to be deputy Headmaster. The final decision belongs to Dippet alone, but he will consult you, and I won't pretend that we don't always see eye to eye. That you may still be influenced by the poor showing I put on when we met."

"Oh, no," said Albus. "I would be mostly influenced by what you've done with yourself since."

Tom's eyes narrowed. His thumb moved, almost absent-mindedly, to stroke the band of the ugly ring he'd started wearing two Septembers ago.

"And I was never under the impression that you had become someone who enjoyed sharing knowledge or helping others. Tell me, Tom, do you really want to become a teacher?"

"I don't know how I feel about teaching, sir," said Tom, flat and candid, more so than Albus had been expecting. "But I do know how I feel about Hogwarts. I know I want to stay here, because I love it here--"

"You _love_?" Albus could not, as it turned out, unsee the expression on Ganymede Greengrass's face, the small, self-satisfied smirk on Tom's, the years he'd spent in Europe, turning his head at every flash of golden blond hair, every familiar laugh. The veritable mountain of newspaper clippings in his bottom desk drawer. He could not forget the attempt, could not forgive it, could not bear it. "What do you know of love, Tom?"

Tom flinched back as if he'd been slapped. His nostrils flared and his face went entirely white. His eyes were as dark as the North Sea had been the last time Albus had visited Azkaban.

"Love is a power you don't understand, and have shown no interest in trying to understand,. Don't you _dare_ use that word in my presence to justify your ambitions."

Tom's hands clenched. There was a second where it seemed like he might attack Albus, but he must have known that was a fight he could not win. "So you'll speak against me."

"If Headmaster Dippet asks," said Albus, "I will give him my honest opinion."

"Your honest opinion," Tom repeated. He laughed hollowly. "Thank you, professor. I can always count on that."

He turned, robes swirling dramatically, and exited the classroom. Albus sank slowly into his chair.

It was worse with Tom gone--not that Albus had ever believed he, or anyone else, would have ever thought that before--because without the intrusion, the argument, the fight, all he could think about was how Gellert had looked up at him from his knees four months ago, blood pouring from a cut to his forehead. Albus wondered if for a second Gellert, too, could have wanted Albus to distract him from it, tease him for his slow reflexes and his faith in children's tales, fix it for him.

And would it have been better or worse if he had? Was it better or worse that Gellert's smiles had always been open, generous, affectionate, nothing like Tom's self-contained, self-satisfied one?

He did not sleep well that night.

-

The school year ended. At the leaving feast half the seventh years promised to owl Albus later, and perhaps half of those would, and perhaps a quarter of those would be actual correspondence instead of a hastily scrawled request for a recommendation. He didn't mind it so much--didn't mind it at all. They were eighteen, and had better things to think of than their fussy old teachers. 

The summer holidays usually gave him time to focus on his research and curriculum development, but instead he found the Ministry wanted more of his time, and Armando Dippet wanted more of his time, and well-wishers and hangers-on from all over the northern hemisphere wanted most of his time. Albus managed to put as much of them off as he could, but even that took hours.

"I think I shall start telling everyone my phoenix burned their letters," he remarked to Pomona and Filius over breakfast one morning in late July.

They laughed, but then Pomona added, "Albus, you wouldn't. It's a nuisance, I'm sure, but it's a flattering one."

"Well," he said, with a glance down into his tea. "I do suppose there are worse problems to have."

Like the one that arose that afternoon, as he was going over the proofs of an article for _Transfiguration Today_ , when his office door flew open and a young man came in, his dark hair windswept and his cloak a mess, a broom still clutched in one hand.

"Alastor?" Albus said, getting to his feet. "Is the Ministry already sending you out on errands?"

"I finished Auror training five years ago, Professor," Alastor Moody said.

Albus had actually attended the ceremony, but he could have sworn it wasn't nearly so long ago, and would have asked had it really been that long, but from the look of things Alastor had Apparated to just outside the grounds and then flown to the castle--possibly through the castle--to reach him. "Ah. You will forgive me if I postpone the civil conversation until later? The Ministry seems to have sent you on rather urgent business."

"Aye," said Alastor grimly. "It's Grindelwald, sir. He's escaped."

-

He flew back with Alastor out his office window, and Apparated them both to the Ministry in mid-air. If Albus did not keep acting, he would begin to think, and when he thought, his heart kept seizing up, and he felt as if there were a great void opened up beneath him through which he might fall at any moment. Which had been true, when he'd been on the broom, but now, in the Ministry, there was solid stone beneath his feet, and yet he scrambled to find purchase.

The Minister of Magic was meeting with the ICW, so it fell to the Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement to brief Albus on what had happened: the guards they'd had watching Gellert were all dead. He saw the memory, the marks on their faces, and knew what had happened.

"He was known to fixate on Obscuri before," said Emmeline Vance. "We had no reports of him recruiting a new one, but our intelligence couldn't cover everything he did."

"Of course not," said Albus. "Do you have a time for the attack?"

"Within the last thirty-six to twenty-four hours," said Emmeline. "We only found out because of the shift changes. He didn't indulge in any of the property destruction he normally does, so there were no magical or Muggle reports of disturbance."

"I see," said Albus. "Have there been any since?" There were Muggle troops everywhere: even for Gellert it wouldn't be simple to evade their scrutiny.

"None," said Emmeline grimly. 

"With any luck, the creature nearly killed him too and he's crawled off to die," growled Alastor.

"Moody!" Emmeline sounded deeply shocked, which was unusual for a witch of her age and experience, but then Albus realized she was staring at his face, and had to wonder what had been on it to upset her so.

He steeled himself and said, quietly, "I'll start at the prison, then," he said. "I--I fought him. I know his magic. I think I would recognize it."

-

There was nothing at the prison that led in any particular direction, but he told Emmeline to keep an eye on it and send him a message if there were any developments. He'd let them believe that it was the fight that allowed him to sense Gellert's magic, but in truth it had been that great and unspeakable intimacy fifty years gone. The fight had brought all his memories of it back to the surface with shocking, sadistic clarity, and had branded Gellert's current magic, which had changed but not too greatly, into Albus's senses. Powerful wizards could sense magic, but there had to be a link there: lovers, siblings, extremely close friends and mentors or students. Children. 

Albus shook his head. No. Even if he had been so powerful that he could recognize Gellert's magic from the duel alone, it would have availed him nothing. There were no traces of his magic to be found. The Obscurus had committed the murders for him, and Gellert had fled on foot. 

Gellert would be expecting them to think he'd head homewards, south and east, and so Albus went west. It would be easier for Gellert to move through through France and Germany, where Muggles had long ago given up their beliefs in magic.

Alastor and Emmeline's Patronuses came to him with regular updates, and every update was to say they had no news of Grindelwald. He hadn't expected they would.

It was among the Muggles that Albus found the trail: he would meet their eyes and look for the memories of a man, old for a wizard only in his mid-sixties, his fair hair graying and flat and hopefully growing out of that hideous haircut. He wasn't terribly tall, terribly thin, or broad, or short. He had no scars that Albus had been able to see during the duel--and none that Albus had left. He'd made no mark on Gellert, that last time, or long before that.

Muggles were quite simple to maneuver around with a smile and a blank piece of paper and some mind magic. The French sometimes regarded him with hostility, mostly directed at his suit (navy blue, double-breasted, magenta trim, and quite splendid if he said so himself), but the officials would always see him, and give him what answers they possessed--which, alas, were not many. But every so often a man matching that description had been seen--and, troublingly enough, seen with a long, thin stick in one hand.

Albus shouldn't have been surprised, but he was, because he had Gellert's wand. He held it in his hand every time he Apparated to the next population center, the next American camp. But he supposed there would have been enough suddenly ownerless wands in the aftermath of the Obscurus's attack for Gellert to have had his pick.

On the very last day of July, sitting in a dingy bar in Belgium, Albus heard reports of a man Muggles thought a fugitive Nazi stealing a boat in Copenhagen, and Albus nearly choked on a delightful Trappist ale, thinking, _Oh, surely not._ Gellert had, as a youth, found an island in the Baltic Sea that had been warded to keep out Muggles and protected by old but crumbling enchantments to make other wizards steer their ships or carpets or dragons or dirigibles away and leave the place in peace. He'd overcome those enchantments over the course of several days, with little food and less sleep, but an abundance of zeal. It took a lot to stop Gellert from doing something once he'd set his heart on it. He'd told Albus all about it one evening, his face flushed and eyes shining with triumph, and made the island behind the wards sound like a perfect paradise-slash-fortress, and told him they would visit it before they set out on their quest for the Hallows.

Of course, they never had, and Gellert had instead built his fortress in the German forest, a huge towering monstrosity that Aurors of all nations were preparing to imprison him in, as soon as he was returned to custody. Albus did not think Gellert would have told his followers about the island, knowing there was a chance he might one day have to hide from them: there was not much trust or fellowship among dark wizards.

Gellert might not remember telling Albus about the island--the recital had ended with one hand inside Albus's robes, and they'd both been rather distracted after that. Albus might not have remembered it either, were it not for his Pensieve. He supposed the invention of the Pensieve would be rather diminished as one of his accomplishments should anyone discover what a bored and drunk and lonely twenty-four-year-old wizard had set out to do, and what uses he'd originally put it to.

The island, then. He rented a boat of his own the next morning. It was a small and leaky fishing craft, but he had little to choose from. The Muggle he contracted with peered suspiciously at him when he asked if there was anywhere in the area that sold maps, and Albus could hear him thinking that this boat wasn't suited to much beyond the coasts--although Albus was paying him enough that he would never say it outright. 

The boat wasn't suited to much of anything, but Albus had brushed up on the charms to bail it out and push it through the waves. He charted a course from long ago Astronomy lessons and Muggle maps, and recalled everything that Gellert had said about the island. He could practically hear Gellert's voice as his land-finding spell led him past Muggle islands, and within twenty nautical miles of his target he could feel it, a wisp of Gellert's magic.

Albus had hunted down dark wizards with the Ministry before, and what he had felt then was excitement, the thrill of the chase. What he felt now was dread, and it only grew as he approached the island. From a distance it looked flat and gray. There was a dock of wood, salt-sprayed and half-rotten, several planks dragging down into the sea. Moored to it was a yacht made from gleaming, mahogany-colored wood, its sail furled and probably unused. 

He could sense that even if the dock would hold his weight, it would set up an alarm and Gellert would know that someone was approaching, might even know that he was approaching, and so instead he guided the boat to a small, pebbly beach and made his way up the slope.

Upon closer inspection, the island grew more gloomy. Thin trees poked up through thin soil, and scrubby patches of grass dotted the landscape. There were a few stone ridges, a small creek that was mostly dry, some flat stones that felt of unfamiliar magic. Albus could feel Gellert's magic, though, pulling him onwards, and he had to wonder if this might be a trap--but if it was, why not place the spells before an intruder ventured further into the island, before an intruder stumbled onto the small, decrepit cabin on the opposite side of the island from where Albus had disembarked? There was an overgrown garden of sorts in front of it, and a well he was sure had run dry long ago. He double-checked his Disillusionment charm, wrapped his hand firmly around the Elder Wand, and walked towards it.

The cottage was made of stone and held together by magic and spite. The sun had not fully set yet, and the sky was still light, but the cottage's one window was small and deep, and Albus thought he could see a glow from the inside in addition to the smoke from the chimney. If there had ever been any curtains, they had long since fallen to pieces.

By now Albus thought he had a decent idea of what awaited him on this island, but then he opened the door and discovered that Gellert was indeed aware that he was there--was, in fact, waiting for him in the middle of the cottage's one room, smiling and stark naked.

Albus cast _Expelliarmus_ before he could even ascertain that Gellert was holding a wand. But he was, and it flew into Albus's hand, and he tucked it away mechanically as he stared at Gellert, his heart pounding. He dropped the Disillusionment charm--it was obvious where he was, and Gellert clearly knew who it was. There was no point in hiding.

"Did you truly think that would work?" he asked, when he could finally speak again.

Gellert was just staring at him. There wasn't any of the hatred he had seen five months ago, when they'd met in battle, or the fear when Gellert had lost. He didn't seem to be calculating or contemplating his next move, but Albus had hardly been able to tell when he was before, and he couldn't now, especially not when Gellert was naked.

Gellert laughed. "It's not for your benefit, Albus," he said, and ran his tongue over his lips. "Do you know how long I had to wear the same set of rotting robes, stuck to me with my own sweat and blood? Even if I'd had no other incentives, I'd have broken out of there for a bath."

"You stole clean clothes," he pointed out. Gellert's ribs were stark, and there was some ugly scarring all along one thigh, and the ends of more wrapped around his back, nothing Albus would have been able to see if he'd been wearing the stolen garments. But he was very clean. His hair looked soft and recently washed. There was only a fleck of something dark on his chest, beneath body hair that was still sparse and still fair.

"Oh, I did, for the journey. But once here? They wouldn't let me have any privacy either. Imagine a dozen Aurors watching you at all times. They watch me shit, they watch me piss, they watch me vomit out the rancid food they give me. Of course, it's better when they're just watching. When the blows are only verbal. I got a fair bit of blood on those robes. The scabs ripped open anew when I peeled them off. The fresh air, you see, has been good for my wounds."

He did look thinner than he had five months ago. Unwell. Albus moved closer, feeling vaguely ashamed that he'd complained about the stifling adulation of so many witches and wizards when Gellert had lacked a far more fundamental form of privacy. And hotly furious that the Aurors who guarded Gellert did so with such disrespect, with jeers, with kicks, with cruelty that he supposed Gellert's crimes may have deserved, but Gellert himself--Gellert, a thin, aging man, looking so small and harmless in the warmth of the firelight--Albus could not bear to think of it, that the soft skin Albus had once kissed so reverently had had such violence visited on it.

Bruises would have long faded, but as he got closer he could see the pinkish color of new skin, scabs closed over and healing. And then there was the black mark--

The black mark, which was not a wound. It was a tattoo, black and plain, about the size of a Sickle: a line inside a circle inside a triangle. The cloak, the stone, the--the Deathly Hallows. Albus tightened his grip on the Elder Wand.

"Do you like it?" Gellert asked.

Albus couldn't take his eyes off it. He wondered how long Gellert had had it, who had tattooed it onto him. What it meant to him. Whether there were other properties to it than what Albus could see--if there was magic, he might be able to feel--

"You can touch it, if you like."

He reached out before he could stop himself. At least he didn't use his wand hand. His trembling finger lay against Gellert's cool skin.

There were no spells bound into it that he could sense. The jolt that lanced through him was a different sort of magic altogether.

Gellert smiled at him, and there was so much of the old delight in it. "You want this too," he'd whispered incredulously, his accent still quite thick, his voice trembling. "I would get expelled a thousand times to find you. The whip, the ceremony, I would let them break open my back a million times to have found you." And Albus, fool that he was, had believed him. Gellert's blue eyes were sparkling as he took Albus's hand in both of his and brought it to his mouth, and sucked his first two fingers in, two knuckles deep.

Albus could have let his eyes slide shut and return, in that moment, to the summer of 1899. Gellert had done that to tease him then too--and it was the same mouth, the same heat, the same movements, no matter what else had changed. 

Except at least one of them was now a killer, and Ariana was dead.

He yanked his hand back, and as he retreated, yelled, _"Incarcerous!"_

Gellert tested the ropes, rolling his shoulders, swinging his arms back and forth, bending his elbows, smiling all the while. "Oh," he said. "This is a new interest of yours." He shrugged. "I can work with it."

"You'll have to," said Albus, ignoring the innuendo. Gellert would keep trying and trying until one of them broke. "You'll be bound until I return you to the custody of the International Confederation of Wizards."

Gellert smiled. "Oh," he said, "then you're planning on dressing me? And feeding me, and cleaning me, and helping me relieve myself? Time and time again, until we're close enough to Apparate?" Gellert licked his lips. Albus wanted to look away but couldn't take the chance. "I think I would enjoy that very much."

"I may not have thought through all those implications, but I can't allow you the use of your hands. I can't allow you to escape again."

Gellert stood there, head tilted as though he was considering his next move. And yet, even knowing that, Albus longed to put a cloak over him. The fire wasn't very strong in the cabin, and they were far north; outside, there would be no protection from the winds.

"I'll come quietly," he said finally, "on one condition."

"You're not in a position to make demands."

Gellert smiled. Aberforth had once said that Gellert had always seemed like the world was a joke only he knew the punchline to. And that, it seemed, had not changed either. "Touch me. Touch me, and I swear to you, I won't try to escape, the whole journey back."

"Touch you?" Albus repeated. "I was a fool to have even come that close, Gellert. I'm not giving you a second chance to take my wand."

Gellert's mouth thinned, and then relaxed with a laugh that almost seemed too big and too loud for him. "Oh, I'll take your wand, all right."

Early in their acquaintance, Gellert had borrowed some books from his great aunt's library, and accidentally grabbed an old romance novel along with the historical texts. He'd taken to reading parts of it out loud, chuckling at it all, but giving Albus sly glances from beneath his golden lashes. Even with the tortured metaphors and absurd euphemisms, it had always driven Albus to distraction.

As it did now.

"You have this opportunity," said Gellert. He licked his lips again, and for a moment Albus could barely remember anything except how they had felt. "You'd be mad not to take it."

It had been such a terribly long time.

It was such a terribly bad idea.

A muttered spell and the ropes around Gellert's hands went loose for long enough to Albus to retie them stretched above his head, pulled upwards by an invisible cord of his magic. Gellert inhaled sharply and he flushed all over.

Another spell and the wand Albus had taken from Gellert was in a protective bubble along with his own. Even if Gellert broke free of the ropes, he wouldn't be able to break the spell.

Securing the wands didn't seem to disappoint Gellert, though. In fact, when Albus finished pulling his robes over his head, Gellert looked positively gleeful.

He had always wondered how much of Gellert's enthusiasm had been faked, all those decades ago. But of course Gellert could be faking it now: why wouldn't he also have become a more accomplished liar with age?

He crossed the space between them again and it almost felt as though he was crossing the years too. Two boys, barely men, with half-formed ideas about what they wanted apart from one another, in the stuffy summer warmth of Albus's bedroom. The curtains shut, the door locked, nervous but just brave enough for this.

Albus kissed Gellert. Gellert made a startled sound--jerked against the ropes, forward. Albus took hold of him, grabbed his hips, his fingers feeling how prominent his bones were, relearning his body: broader, the skin nowhere near as smooth, but somehow the mouth seemed the same. Even if there was now a sour taste to it, even if he'd lost a tooth or two, even if his lips had narrowed with time, kissing Gellert was very nearly the same.

The only difference was that Gellert could not bury his hands in Albus's hair, draw him in, direct him to a spot on his neck, his jaw, below his ear. Because Gellert was bound, because Gellert was--

He took a step backwards, and Gellert stumbled after him.

"This was a mistake," he said.

"Oh, a mistake." Gellert regained his footing--and Albus, fool that he was, reached out to help. "A mistake is not having shaved off that beard like I told you to. A mistake is having grown it out all the way down your chest. Hasn't anyone ever told you how it tickles?" Thankfully, before Albus answered that honestly, he frowned. "Did you grow it out to spite me?" Then he pressed his lips to Albus's again, and Albus could feel his laughter against his lips, and his entire body, because Gellert, beard notwithstanding, had pressed his body against Albus's, and between kisses said, "Oh, you are so ridiculous."

"Yes," said Albus.

"Yes, you grew it out to spite me, or yes, you are ridiculous?"

"Yes." He tightened his grip on Gellert's arse, and Gellert came as close as he possibly could, as if trying to burrow into Albus. They were both growing hard from this, Gellert pushing his hips against Albus's and making those choked, breathless sounds that had appeared in his dreams for decades. He moved a hand to his hair, cupping the back of Gellert's skull, and Gellert tucked his head against Albus's neck and sniffed deeply, as if he'd forgotten what Albus smelled like. 

Then he pulled back. "Hair," he said. "In my nose. In my mouth."

"I find it gives me a rather authoritative air," said Albus. "Without it, I fear no one would take me seriously."

"I will take you," said Gellert, "any which way."

He said it in a low voice and with what sounded like complete sincerity. Albus's grip tightened on the back of Gellert's head and he kissed him, and Gellert moaned, and he did not care if this was pretense, he did not care if this was an escape attempt, he needed this. He had been lonely for so long, and he deserved--he deserved something. He deserved love, or at least the semblance of it, for one night, because he had forgotten what it had felt like. Whatever he could have had anywhere else, with anyone else, paled in comparison to the thought of having this one more time, and in another place in the back of his mind, that scared him, almost as much as the idea that this would be the last time.

"You may want to take off your shorts, before you ruin another pair," said Gellert. He was attempting a conversational, even mocking, tone, but his breathing was ragged. 

"That was one time," said Albus.

Gellert smiled, and began to walk backwards towards the bed. Albus's eyes dipped down to his cock, but returned to his face, to that smile.

He scanned the surroundings for something that might be dangerous, but there wasn't anything like a weapon. Just an old book by the bedside, and a pot that looked like oil.

Gellert saw where he was looking. "There wasn't any of that in jail, if I'd been in the mood to touch myself."

"Perhaps you should have considered the relative discomforts of jail before you committed all those crimes." 

He shrugged. He managed to swing his legs onto the bed and scoot backwards. "I always imagined I would die fighting," he said, and that was a terrible idea, the idea of Gellert dying--the idea that he might have killed Gellert.

"Albus?"

Albus closed his eyes. 

"Albus, are you quite all right?"

"You're not allowed to die before me," said Albus.

"I think I might, if you don't come over here." He was treating it like a joke. It was not. "Oh, if you insist. I won't die before you do if you will hurry up and _come here_."

Albus opened his eyes. Gellert almost looked worried--but then he saw Albus watching and he moved his legs so that his knees were bent, and apart.

He moved to the bed so quickly Gellert might as well have cast a Summoning Charm. Gellert sagged against the headboard in relief as Albus knelt on the bed. His back hit the pillows, but when Albus leaned over him to reach for the oil, he lifted himself up enough to kiss Albus again. He didn't have the leverage to put any force behind it, and it was unexpectedly tender and affectionate.

"I should have also made you promise that you would remove your socks first," he said wryly when they were finished. "Those socks and that beard. What have you become, without me?"

"Someone who tries, and occasionally succeeds, to do real good," Albus said quietly. He knew it wasn't what Gellert wanted to hear, but he had to say it. Had to remember it. He wished he could go back in time and tell his younger self that; he wished that he could go back in time and tell Gellert that. The unspeakable cost of their greater good. Gellert turned his face away then, his mouth twisting. "Someone who doesn't hurt other people out of a misguided notion of what is right and what is wrong."

When he had retrieved the pot, Gellert had still not looked back at him. When he was back down on the bed, kneeling between Gellert's open legs, he bent down and sucked the very tip of Gellert's cock by way of apology. When he looked up, Gellert's eyes were blue and blazing.

For a second he wondered if the oil inside the pot was a caustic agent that would destroy his wand hand. In which case, the joke would surely be on Gellert, because he could not break that bubble. He dipped his fingers in regardless, but there was no pain, no sensation out of the ordinary.

"Do you know how I--ah--escaped?" Gellert asked, his voice sharp, as Albus began to trace him, his fingers slippery with oil.

"You had an associate kill the Aurors guarding you." He did not want to talk about this, but of course Gellert would make him.

"But which associate?"

Albus twisted his fingers sharply inside him, and Gellert's back bent reflexively this time, his bound hands hitting the wall above the headboard, his breath fast and shallow. Albus would not give him the satisfaction of mentioning the Obscurus, of being goaded by the mention of one.

Gellert laughed. "Oh," he said, "yes, there, yes, you know all about Credence, don't you? The poor boy is in love with me."

"The more fool him," said Albus grimly, wiping his fingers off on the sheets. For a brief second it occurred to him the oil could have been a slow-acting poison. 

If so, it was already too late. Far, far too late.

"He was tearing himself apart," said Gellert. "Flagellating himself for being something he shouldn't have been ashamed of, beaten down by narrow-minded people who didn't understand his potential for greatness. Who feared it. I freed him from that."

Albus remembered the reports. The one adopted sister dead. The other fled, terrified. He pulled Gellert down the bed and shoved his legs farther apart, and in the back of his mind remembered the first time they'd done this. Gellert had been so cool and in control and Albus's hands would not stop shaking. He hadn't quite believed it was happening. He didn't quite believe it now, either.

"So why sh--" Gellert grunted, as Albus slid home. "Why shouldn't he love me?"

"You destroyed him," said Albus. Gellert moved with him, as best he could. Their bodies remembered each other, and it was like no time had passed at all. "You tore apart his family and made him a fugitive."

"And he came back to me," panted Gellert. "He came back to me. Wouldn't you say that, that being the case, he found it worth it?"

Albus bent down and bit the skin close to Gellert's Deathly Hallows tattoo. Gellert hissed and then laughed, one heel digging into Albus's back. "I knew you'd like it," he said. "I knew, I knew, I knew--"

He slipped his arms over Albus's head and drew himself up to meet Albus's mouth. A muscle twinged in Albus's back, but it was so utterly unimportant, for Albus had missed, waited for, this for decades. When Gellert came he took Albus down with him.

He let himself lay his head on Gellert's chest, knowing that soon enough his arms and legs and back would also begin to hurt.

"I don't love him, you know," said Gellert, somewhere above Albus's head. He'd dropped the defiance and anger and stated it like an observation about the weather. The sky is clear, the air is cool, I never loved Credence Barebone.

"I didn't expect you would."

"Because I love you," he continued, in that same tone. "You and only you."

Albus raised his head, incredulous, and Gellert muttered to himself in German and maneuvered his bound arms out of the way. 

"You do know I can understand that?"

"You hardly act like it," said Gellert, wincing as Albus pulled out.

"I--" Albus had been looking for a cloth to clean them both. The cleaning charm had felt so impersonal the first time he'd used it, so he'd made the switch, and Gellert hadn't complained. He glanced back at Gellert, lying on the bed, hands stretched back and expression neutral. "I can't let you go," he said, almost apologetically. Because there was some part of him--a sentimental in addition to the anatomical one--that didn't want to bring Gellert back to the International Confederation of Wizards either.

Gellert stared at him for a moment, then said in German, "My seed is in your beard."

It was. Albus sighed and found a scrap of cloth, dipped it into the basin of water. Gellert submitted to being cleaned up, a little less sensitive and a lot more silent than he had been as a youth, and Albus was hesitant to lie down next to him again, but if Gellert meant what he said--and that was always there, that if, because what was love, if the lover could so callously hurt the loved one's family? But what was love, if the lover could so callously hurt the loved one, if the lover could put the man he loved in prison, in a prison where he was mistreated by his guards? If he could demand that Gellert subject himself to that for years, decades, until after Albus himself had died, because Albus couldn't bear the thought of him dead, but suffering, that he could do--he must have wounded him gravely.

And he would not have this opportunity, not after they had sailed into port. Perhaps not even on the boat: he didn't know what the accommodations were like on the one Gellert had stolen. In a few days, he would leave Gellert. And he would never see him again.

Part of Albus still rebelled against the idea of Gellert spending the rest of his life rotting in a cell. He knew Gellert couldn't go free, but--if he could confine Gellert to this island. Gellert might agree to stay. After what they had just done, he looked more like the boy he'd been, the boy Albus had loved so desperately, so foolishly, so devastatingly. It wasn't even entirely for Gellert's benefit that Albus wanted to keep him here, either. It was for his own. He was a war hero. He'd already once had someone he loved torn from him and sentenced to a slow, withering death, and it had nearly destroyed his entire life, his entire family. Everyone else had accepted his reassurances that he bore Muggles no ill will, that he did not approve of his father's attack, that he did not mind taking himself, and later Aberforth, to Diagon Alley and King's Cross every summer while his mother entombed herself in their house with Arianna, but Gellert had taken one look at him and known how deeply it had hurt. He reached out and touched that hurt, and asked what if it had not had to be that way, what if no one else ever again had to feel such a hurt ever again, and Albus, fool that he was, had believed it could be done. That Gellert would do it for him.

And part of him believed--or wanted to believe--in that still, even after everything that had happened. That Gellert loved him, wanted him to be happy, and would clear all the obstacles from his way.

And the rest of him was rightly horrified by the very thought.

Gellert opened his eyes a crack. "What are you scheming now?" he asked.

How to live without you, Albus did not say. Funny, when he'd already had so much practice. He reached out and touched Gellert's hair. "If you hadn't cut off your curls, I may very well have lost that duel."

"And here I thought only you had made foolish hair decisions in our years apart."

"I missed you," he said. "I looked for you everywhere in Europe, although at the time I think I wanted to kill you."

"You missed your chance."

"I intended to. I could not." He hadn't wanted to lose yet one more person he loved. And therein lay the reason he had to bring Gellert back to prison. He couldn't even be sure this wasn't Gellert's plan all along. He could hardly keep everyone else safe from Gellert's manipulations when he couldn't say the same about himself. 

He was still in love with Gellert, although he had an abundance of reasons not to be. The last time he'd let his love for Gellert direct his decisions, he'd been swept away in dreams of their grand future, cheerfully ignoring Gellert's cruelty and single-minded commitment to his cause, and so had been doubly surprised and dismayed and too slow to react when it had been wielded against his siblings. If he'd seen Gellert as he truly was, he could have spoken up, sooner, more forcefully, and Gellert would never have pulled his wand on Aberforth, and Ariana would not be dead. And Gellert would not have--Albus could have kept talking him around into morality, whereas after he'd run he'd only grown worse. They could have been together all these years, if Albus had only been a little more observant, and a little more assertive.

And a little less in love. He could not let that happen again.

"Forgive me," he said to Gellert. Gellert might not stay on this island forever, but it would become, like the old house in Godric's Hollow, one of the places Albus would never truly leave, the place where he would condemn Gellert to incarceration and pain to spare others. The place where he hurt the man he loved for the Greater Good.

And Gellert looked at him and even after everything, he was still so fearless and terrible and beautiful, and Albus only hurt. He smiled. "Always."


End file.
